New features and changes to how one or more functions behave may be introduced in each new database management release. This could potentially impact existing applications that are using functions of a prior release. Traces to identify the affected statements may be provided, but the data might not be able to be used directly by the end user. For example, existing trace data might only show a statement number, but not the statements themselves.
When the new version of database management is released, database management may tolerate the old unsupported functions of a prior release with a flag option to tell database management that database management is to tolerate unsupported functions of a previous release. When the flag to tolerate the supported functions is set, it may prevent users from using new functionalities and features supported by the newer release. The next release or later releases may stop tolerating the old unsupported functions. The sooner old unsupported functions are removed, the sooner users can enjoy the new features of database management.